It will come as no surprise to anyone to discover that classical music PR has been hit as much as any other sector in the downturn, more so perhaps because much of it is mired in old technology and false terminology.
Artists are always great or important, they are only ever motivated by inspiration and, if they cancel a concert for a hottie on a South Sea beach, they must surely be doing so on doctor’s orders. Many careers have been made by PR and twice as many damaged.
Rollando Villazon – to name just one obvious victim – might still have a voice to die for if he hadn’t allowed himself to be used as Anna Netrebko’s PR prop.
In the June issue of The Strad, print version only, I ask whether classical PR does more harm than good. If you work in the music business, or have been asked for $10,000 to place a New York Times feature, you may want to read it.
Herbert Breslin, where are you now?
The Orchestre de Paris is offering free streaming of the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) as its centennial gift to the world. The details are announced on his website by its outgoing chief conductor, Christophe Eschenbach, and is being operated in conjunction with Medici TV and the Arte channel.
There appear to be no hidden traps or constraints. Once the orchestra has performed each symphony, it will remain available online until July 2011. All the details can be read, in English, at http://mahler.christoph-eschenbach.com/
There is just one shortcoming. I have a problem, and I am not alone, with Eschenbach conducting Mahler. Every symphony I have heard from him – tenth, second, first and sixth – has been rhythmically idiosyncratic to the point where I felt the conductor was imposing an irrational personal imprint on the music. I came out neither uplifted nor outraged, but mildly irritated by the conductor’s wilfulness, which seemed to me remote from Mahler’s intentions.
In my forthcoming book Why Mahler? I have a section that discusses close to 2,000 interpretations of the works. I am unlikely to listen to another Eschenbach interpretation when there are such thoughtful and fulfilling new releases from, among others, David Zinman, Paavo Järvi, Peter Vronsky and – I never thought I’d find him on the leaderboard – Roger Norrington, whose recent ninth lingers tenuously in my ear.
So try free Eschenbach by all means. Just don’t expect too much.
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LATE EXTRA: The London Philharmonic are streaming the season’s final concert, containing Liszt’s seldom -heard Faust Symphony. Catch it here: www.lpo.org.uk/listenagain
The eminent artist Avigdor Arikha and the outstanding violinist and teacher Stefan Gheorghiu have died. They were born in the same year in Rumania. Arikha came from Czernowitz (now Ukraine), fled to Palestine, was wounded in the 1948 war and wound up in Paris, where he formed a creative friendship with the playwright Samuel Beckett.
Moving from abstract art to portraiture, Arikha had exceptional graphic insights. I met him at the British Museum in June 2006 where he was donating his lifetime hoard of etchings to the Department of Prints and Drawings. He told me how, as a penniless student in the 1950s, he had been inspired by wandering through the BM’s galleries of world civilisation, open to all without admission charge. He vowed that, should he ever become famous, he would make a bequest to the Museum. Neil MacGregor put on a fine exhibition; pictures of Arikha at the show can be seen here. Obituaries have appeared in the New York Times and Haaretz.
?tefan Gheorghiu (b. March 22, 1926 — d. March 17, 2010), barely known outside his country, had Mihaela Martin, Silvia Marcovici and Mariana Sirbu among his many international pupils. His son Andrei, once married to the soprano Angela Gheorghiu, is planning a memorial concert. More details of his life have yet to reach me.
